Field of Invention
The present disclosure relates to an aging detection circuit. More particularly, the present disclosure relates to an aging detection circuit configured on a chip.
Description of Related Art
At recent years, replacement rate of electronic devices is gradually increasing in that hardware resource of the electronic devices is unable to catch up the massive computation required by the constantly updating software. Further, circuit aging of the electronic device may significantly deteriorate the operating speed of the electronic device.
Generally, various operating surrounding result in different aging extents of circuits of the electronic device, such as duration of operating time, operating voltage or operating temperature, which further changes characteristics of transistors in the circuits. For example, a threshold voltage of an aged transistor is different from that of a new transistor; particularly, the threshold voltage of the aging transistor is greater than the threshold voltage of the new transistor. In other words, in the circumstance of the same operating voltage, the aged circuit is more difficult to be conducted than that with the new transistors, and the current flowing through the aged circuit becomes smaller, which lowers the operating speed of the aged circuit and further makes the aged circuit improperly operate.
Traditionally, in order to overcome the aging problem of the transistor, the operating voltage level of the circuit is usually increased to make the circuit operate in a normal operating speed. The increase of the operating voltage level is usually dependent on an aging level of the circuit. A traditional method of detecting the aging level is usually detecting the threshold voltage of the transistor or the operating speed of the circuit such that the threshold voltage or the operating speed can be a reference for identifying the aging level of the circuit.
Techniques nowadays are however unable to effectively detect the aging level of the circuit itself if needed. To precisely detect an exact aging level of the circuit usually requires external hardware resource to assist in the detection, but the hardware resource costs too much and is impractical.